Tech salaries up five per cent in 2010

Last year saw continued growth in demand for IT staff, and a five per cent increase in salaries. Finance positions were down six per cent, but demand for both permanent and contract staff working in retail increased. The most sought-after skills by employers were SQL, C and C#, although C saw a four per cent drop in demand. …

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you send this to my boss...

...because I bet I won't be getting a 5% pay rise!!!

[s. pam]

Wow -- what company, are they hiring???

Reg'o dudes, I think you may want to clean out your pipes as most of us were quite lucky for 1% -> 2% (average our place 1.4%) vs. being unemployed so 6% sounds like a wee bit of crack smoking given the current market.

[Gordon Barret]

0%

Poor me - my last increase was 3.5% in Jan 2008...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... Positive, but not generally

I would point out that while this is a positive sign, it doesn't apply to all IT companies.

For example, our company (and a couple of others that I know of) are still under a blanket 'no pay reviews' rule, which has been in place for 3 years now. You can imagine the affect that this is having on Staff morale, especially since there are now more projects, and more income. Of course, the biggest hit on Staff Morale is the FD's shiny new Mercedes...

[jake]

C saw a 4% drop?

That's probably because Programmer Barbie says "C class is tough!" ...

Personally, my tech income rose about 22% last year, but I did about 70% of the tech work (hours) when compared to 2009 ... Might be because I no longer take on contracts for Redmond-based gear, might not ... We'll see what the coming decade brings :-)

[James 47]

bull

I suppose most of this was given to Googlers who all got 30% payrises instead of the leaked 10%

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, guys

It'll be the banks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish

I work for a bank (hence the anonymous) and have for a good few years, and very few of us have seen a raise of over 1.0% in a long time, even for a good few years before the big crash (and tbh bank IT salaries have never been that competitive unless you're an overtime junky)

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends where you work, doesn't it

My pay rise was ~6.5% and my bonus was up 50%...

Depends how well the company you're working for is doing really, doesn't it...

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

I'm up...

22% on 2009.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh!

My payrise was 0.25% and it was forced on us..... and thats after a years pay freeze, and a previous years pay rise of 2%.

But thats ok, because I work in a Local Authority and someone had to bail out the Central Government, and there was no way they'd take a pay freeze or cut, and as they are too spineless to tax the banks accordingly it seems the rich get richer while the poor work for the Cooncil.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Meh!, 12:53

my experience (from both council and city employment) has been that Councils shafts the economy worse than the City.

I did a two year stretch (I think the phrase is apt) as an IT consultant for one in London and I could not believe the waste and carelessness at all.

Don't tax the banks, they're not the problem at all. Just stop allowing the media to lead policy and bring in some regulation around capital markets. Where banks break the law (with dodgy accounting etc) they should be punished, where they fail to exercise reasonable propriety before spunking their money, they should burn and fail like any other business.

And yes, the "little guy" should burn with them, we're no saints and this parental bullshit is making us dafter, greedier and more corrupt than ever.

[SlackerUK]

up 5%?

Not here - been on a pay freeze for last 12 months and looks likely to continue. Time to get out of the public sector methinks!

[Anonymous Coward]

All relative

I'd been with my company for 6months and got a 4% pay rise. Guess it depends on who you work for and how well you do at your job on top of that (if your employer is in a financial position to give raises)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong

You'll find one near-state-owned banks is shafting it's IT staff royally on "inflationary" increases, and in fact is about to lay off 80% of it's Application support staff - which will be a 100% salary decrease for them.

Even if they kept their jobs, they'll merely be paid industry means-tested average. Even the benefits they used to enjoy are gone - pensions, mortgages etc etc.

Wish people would stop tarring the hard working, *averagely paid*, risk-averse, high-experienced joes down in engine rooms with the traders.

[Anonymous Coward]

No pay rise since 2006 here...

...and the signs are that there'll be no rise this year either.

Well, unless you are an exec, of course - they are getting rises as usual.

[AndrueC]

W T F

If the average is 5% then some of us have been bloody lucky. We only got 2% and from asking around we were considered lucky.

[AlanGriffiths]

This is about the AVERAGE, not something useful

Suppose in 2009 you have developers on:

£100k, £70k, £70k and £60k

You give no pay increases, and make one redundant. Then for 2010

£100k, £70k and £70k

Not good news for the developers, but the AVERAGE improves by nearly 7%

[Anonymous Coward]

if rates are going up everywhere...

...except where you work and you are happy to stay around and accept it, it says as much about you as your company.

I'm no kind of genius but I've still managed to never work more than 8 months a year and bump my salary up nearly 20-fold since 1999, through the .com crash and the worst recession in living memory just by being a) prepared to take whatever opportunities are offered and b) not hanging around in jobs where my employer doesn't appreciate the value of their employees and offer them incentives to perform, progress or just stay.

If no-one will accept the going rate for their skills it creates a scarcity that drives rates up.

Grow a spine, people and get some buccaneer spirit. aaar!

[Kubla Cant]

To all those complaining about their rises

The article is about a rise in rates advertised for new hirings.

You will eventually realise, if you haven't already done so, that the best way to increase your salary is to move to a new job. Many employers take the understandable, if harsh, view that a rise for an existing employee is just paying more for the same old thing.

Count yourselves lucky that you probably work with skills that are easily transferrable and relatively hard to acquire. The job market is your crustacean!

[TkH11]

BS

Yes, this is bollocks. Ok, I got a 5 percent pay rise last year but I was a lucky on, but I work in a company - can't mention it's name or what market sector it's in, because I know my boss reads this forum!! - but the trend is to outsource work to India (and other countries) and trust me, you only have to see the number of Indians in our office, the indigenous whites are being phased out.

Even new permanent recruits ....are Indian!!

The fact is, in the medium and long term our jobs are under threat. And this is the trend, this the way the IT sector in the UK is going, more and more of us will lose our jobs to the Indians; and because of the oversupply of people, salaries will drop, not rise.

I genuninely believe, the outsourcing of IT is the biggest threat to our jobs, our careers, our lives, the IT industry has ever experienced.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's can the racism bit shall we.

My office also has a high number of ethnic minorities, 90% of whom were born and bread in the UK, and speak Estuary better than I do.

Also, off-shoring is not confined to India, Vietnam, The Philippines, Eastern Europe, Indonesia et. al. are also providing services.